DIALECT TRANSLATOR FOR A SPEECH APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT EXTENDED FOR INTERACTIVE TEXT EXCHANGES

• US 20120173225A1
• Filed: 03/08/2012
• Published: 07/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Da Palma, William V., Mandalia, Baiju D., Moore, Victor S., Nusbickel, Wendi L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,654,940 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue

Abstract

The present solution includes a real-time automated communication method. In the method, a real-time communication session can be established between a text exchange client and a speech application. A translation table can be identified that includes multiple entries, each entry including a text exchange item and a corresponding conversational translation item. A text exchange message can be received that was entered into a text exchange client. Content in the text exchange message that matches a text exchange item in the translation table can be substituted with a corresponding conversational item. The translated text exchange message can be sent as input to a voice server. Output from the voice server can be used by the speech application, which performs an automatic programmatic action based upon the output.

Claims

1. A method comprising acts of:

establishing a real-time communication session between a text exchange client and a speech enabled application;

identifying a translation table that includes a plurality of entries, each entry including a text exchange item and a corresponding conversational translation item;

receiving a text exchange message that was entered into a text exchange client;

detecting at least one text exchange item in the text exchange message, which corresponds to an entry included in the translation table;

in the text exchange message, substituting a corresponding conversational translation item for each detected text exchange item; and

sending the substitute message to a text input interface of a voice server to be processed, wherein the substituting act occurs in a manner transparent to the text exchange client and to the speech enabled application.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein a user of the text exchange client is permitted to modify entries of the translation table.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the text exchange item of at least one entry in the translation table is an emoticon.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the text exchange item of at least one entry in the translation table is slang.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the text exchange client is an instant messaging interface, a chat interface, and/or a text-messaging exchange interface.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the speech enabled application is a VoiceXML based application that lacks an inherent text exchange capability.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the text exchange client is an off-the-shelf unmodified interface, and wherein the speech enabled application is an unmodified application configured to execute in a VoiceXML server.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising acts of:

the speech application generating an output message;

detecting at least one conversational translation item in the output message, which corresponds to an entry included in the translation table;

in the output message, substituting a corresponding text exchange item for each detected conversational translation item; and

sending the substitute message to the text exchange client.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said acts of claim 1 are acts performed automatically by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

10. A method for extending a voice server to add text exchange capabilities, the method comprising acts of:

establishing a real-time interactive dialogue between a text exchange client and a speech application executing on a VoiceXML server wherein;

during the interactive dialogue, dynamically translating text entered into the text exchange client that is grammatically part of a text exchange specific language into corresponding text that is grammatically part of a conversational language, and

sending the translated text to a voice server for processing.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising dynamically converting output generated by the speech application to text output that is grammatically part of a conversational language,

dynamically translating the text output into corresponding output text that is grammatically part of a text exchange specific language, and

sending the translated output text to the text exchange client.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the text exchange specific language includes emoticons.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the text exchange specific language includes text exchange slang.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the text output is dynamically translated into corresponding output text using a user configurable translation table.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the language translations occurs in a manner transparent to the text exchange client and to the speech enabled application.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the text exchange client is an off-the-shelf unmodified client, and wherein the speech enabled application is an unmodified application configured to execute on the VoiceXML server.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the speech application is a VoiceXML based application that lacks an inherent text exchange capability.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein said acts of claim 10 are acts performed automatically by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

19. A system for providing text exchange services, the system comprising:

a text exchange client configured to send and receive real-time text exchanges over a text exchange channel;

a speech application environment configured to execute an automated speech response application that permits users to interact in real-time over a voice channel;

a Chatbot server configured to establish a communication session involving the text exchange client and the automated speech response application; and

a dialect translator configured to dynamically detect text exchange specific language contained in messages from the text exchange client, and to convert the text exchange language into corresponding conversational language, wherein converted messages received by the automated speech response system include conversational language.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the text exchange client is an off-the-shelf unmodified client, and wherein the automated speech response application is an unmodified VoiceXML based application that lacks an inherent exchange capability.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the dialect translator uses a user configurable translation table to convert the text exchange language into corresponding conversational language.